Summer
camp, a new job and an eventful Bluesfest mark first three weeks of summer

Hello,
everyone. Hope your having a wonderful summer. It's been a very busy first few
weeks for me. I got a job at McDonald's and had my first training session. I spent
two weeks at art camp and I went to the final day at Bluesfest and saw the main
stage collapse.

So
I guess I'll start with camp. This is was my second year at Long Bay Art Camp
which is kind of near Westport. I got to see one of my friends from last year
and I made some new ones.

I
was in the CIT program this year, which stands for Counsellors In Training. We
did a lot of leadership things the first week, but in the second week, we got
to plan a large evening program that took A LOT of preparation. But in the end
all of the campers and even the counsellors had loads of fun.

We
also got to plan elective activities, which are when the campers get to choose
an activity to do, and even though my group only had two people sign up, due to
the fact that one of the other groups was doing field games, and everyone loves
field games, it still went really well, and everyone enjoyed it.

Also
at camp, as a CIT we got to shadow cabins where we would wake them up and put
them to sleep.

I
had two cabins because my first was really energetic and having 4 CITs in it wasnt
all that good, but my second cabin was much more chill because they were all about
a year or two younger than me and all really quiet, which I appreciated much more.

I also
really enjoyed my photography major, which was good because the teacher was last
minute, but she ended up teaching me way more than I learned last year. I finally
learned the purpose of shutter speed and f-stops, and I abused the heck out of
a macro filter.

Unfortunately,
I lost my memory stick, which had all my pictures on it, right before the exhibit
which is held on the final day of camp when all the parents pick us up. I ended
up having to take a bunch of macro pictures at the last minute, which was cool,
and I ended up with two or three really good ones which I liked.

So,
Bluesfest was fun up until the stage collapsed. I was with my Dad when it
happened, thank goodness, because I was really upset. We were about 20 feet from
the stage and my Dad was checking the radar images on his Blackberry like every
10 minutes. We knew there was going to be a big storm, but we didin't realize
how bad it would be.

When
the wind first picked up everyone around was laughing, but then it got stronger
and stronger and the stage started shaking and creaking. That's when everybody
started running. My Dad told me to walk slowly to get away from the stage a bit
and then he told me to grab onto a railing so we wouldn't get caught up in the
stampede.

After
the stage collapsed I realized my Dad's best friend Randy was in the Best Seats
in the House backstage with his brother and a friend of his. Randy is my Dad's
oldest friend and he owns a really good restaurant downtown. Anyway, after the
stage collapsed I realized Randy was propbably still backstage when it happened
so I got really upset, My Dad tried to calm me down but telling me it would be
fine, but the stage was a mess. It wasn't until we tried to go around backstage
to see if he was alright that we ran into them. Thank goodness they were all right.
it was one of the scariest moments of my life.

But
the worst part about the stage collapsing was that i didn't get to see "Death
Cab for Cutie", who are really awesome. Oh well, maybe next time.

The
next big news is my new job, or should I say first job. So far, I've had my orientation
and my first training session and it's gone pretty good. The only tough part was
working on the fry station during a supper rush and things got a little crazy.
My Dad says that it's going to be a great experience and I'll have something to
put on my resume, but I'm looking forward to finally having some money of my own.

So
as you can see it's been a really busy summer so far. With camp over, I'm looking
forward to spending some time with my friends and taking ti easy before I go down
east for a week with my Dad and my two brothers. We're going to P.E.I. and Nova
Scotia and I can hardly wait. I haven't been to P.E.I. since I was eight.

Anyway,
that's all for now. I'll right again when I get back from P.E.I.

(Maggie
Sherwin is 16-years-old and is in Grade 10 at St. Peter High School. To contact
the Magster e-mail maggie@orleansonline.ca.)